


Healing Old Wounds

by violethuntertheirregular



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-14 20:35:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 11,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3424736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violethuntertheirregular/pseuds/violethuntertheirregular
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A long, chaptered continuation of the adventures of Lady Bucky and her awesome friends. My universe continues, with reappearances of old and new original characters.</p><p>After completing a dangerous mission, Bucky is fed up with working alone and brings in Steve. They make a good duo--or do they? Will Bucky and Steve's differing moral codes get in the way of their relationship? Is Coulson's team really what it appears to be? Can we really trust Jamie Rebecca Barnes? </p><p>There will be angst. There will be cool fight scenes. There will be make-out sessions and references to sex. I'll leave the weird stuff to your imaginations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Rainstorm

Bruce loved thunderstorms. They were calm in the way all rainstorms are, punctuated by brief moments of utter mayhem. Perhaps in that way they reminded him of himself. During one such storm he was just settling down in his favorite armchair with a cup of tea and the newest dissertation on particle physics when he realized he wasn't alone. In the shadows in the corner of his library--if you could call the small room filled with books a true library--stood a figure dressed in black. Bruce thought he caught the silvery glint of metal from the figure, but it was difficult to tell. He set down the cup of tea and took off his glasses. 

"I don't have anything you might want to steal." He stated calmly, standing up from his armchair. He really didn't want to ruin his apartment, he had just paid rent the month and the landlady was nice, but if this intruder didn't leave soon, bad things would happen. "In fact, it would probably be best if you just left the way you came. I won't call the police." The figure took a step towards Bruce, and stumbled. The figure didn't fall, but Bruce was surprised. The figure took another step and now she--Bruce could tell now--was illuminated by fireplace. He had been right about the glint of metal, the mysterious intruder had a metal arm. 

"Bucky. The hell are you doing here?" Bruce demanded, feeling his heart rate drop. She wasn't a threat. Not really. Then Bruce noticed that she was clutching her stomach with her right hand, and blood was spilling between her fingers. She was wearing her goggles and mask, but Bruce felt like she was making an expression of pain. He rushed over and caught her just as she fell to her knees. "Well shit." Bruce wasn't strong on his own, but he wasn't reliable enough as the other guy, so he did his best to half-carry, half-drag Bucky to his bed. He laid her down and gently removed her goggles and mask. He had been right, Bucky was biting her lip so hard that she had started to bleed, and her eyes were welling with tears that were spilling over her cheeks, making great rivulets of black. "I'm going to call an ambulance." Bruce stated quietly, watching Bucky's blue-green eyes as they widened. She shook her head vehemently 'no'. "Ok. Can I at least call Steve?" Bruce received the same treatment. "I'm going to help you on my own then. And that means you're going to have to take your hand away and let me have a look. Is that good?" Bucky nodded slowly and with a short gasp, moved her hand away from her stomach. Bruce let out a low whistle. She was wearing the best bulletproof vest not even on the market, but there was a distinct tear where the bullet had gone in. It was probably armor-piercing, which meant it could have been a through and through, or it was stuck on the other side of the vest. Bruce worked quickly and soon the vest and her one-sleeved jacket were removed and Bucky was left in a black camisole that was dampened red with blood. He felt beneath her and sighed with relief when he felt something cool and metal. At least the bullet wasn't stuck inside. "Ok. Bucky. I'm going to need you to help me out. Take this hand," he lifted her left hand gently and was surprised by its weight. The metal arm was much lighter than he had expected. "And push down on the wound. I'll be back." Bruce sprinted to the bathroom and washed his hands, grabbing sutures, a needle, antiseptic, tweezers, and all the gauze he owned. By the time he returned, he could see that the blood had started to soak into the bed from the exit wound. "Hi. I'm here. Ok. You can take your hand away now." Bucky followed his instruction and there was a small whirring sound as she moved her arm away. The hand was covered with blood, and in a brief moment of fancy, Bruce wondered how many other times it had been equally stained. He shook away the thought and carefully began to roll up Bucky's camisole. She winced and gave a short gasp as he pulled it away from the wound, but held very still. Bruce soaked some of the gauze in water and antiseptic and began cleaning away the blood. The bullet hole was ragged and still bleeding, but not enough to indicate that the bullet had hit any major arteries or veins. He would be able to sew it up without fear of internal bleeding, which was lucky. Bruce didn't have time to wait for anesthetic to kick in, so he began with the sutures. That part was easy and Bucky didn't seem to notice the additional pain. Bruce just hoped that she hadn't gone into shock. He taped a fresh piece of gauze over the wound. "How you doing?" Bruce asked and Bucky gave him a grimace that was probably supposed to be a smile. "Great. Now, I'm going to flip you over. Ready?" He pushed the bulletproof vest off the bed and Bucky nodded. "Ok. One. Two. And three." He carefully rolled Bucky onto her stomach, careful not to burst her stitches. As always, the exit wound was worse than the entry. It was larger, messy, but luckily it hadn't removed any large pieces of flesh. Bruce planned to follow the same procedure as before, clean, suture, gauze, but then he noticed something inside the wound. It was small, about the size of a pill capsule, and made of metal. Bruce cleaned the tweezers as much as he could with the antiseptic, and pulled it from Bucky's back. She made a short hissing sound that was mostly muffled by the pillow. Bruce swore. He knew that these spy agencies sometimes tagged their agents, but he was surprised that SHIELD would stoop so low, especially with Bucky. She had already had her privacy violated--for seventy years--and she didn't deserve any more. In fact she deserved to retire, but nobody managed to convince her of that. Bruce set the capsule next to the bullet on the bedside table and cleaned up the wound. He was just taping extra gauze to Bucky's back when she mumbled something into the pillow. "What did you say?" Bruce asked gently, and she mumbled it again. "I'll roll you over again, then you can tell me, but I don't want you speaking too much." He carefully rolled Bucky over and she gasped again as she settled. 

"Don't. Don't tell anyone." Bucky whispered, her eyes flickering to the bedside table where the capsule lay. There was something very serious in the tone of her voice that made Bruce not even question her reasoning. She knew something he didn't. 

"I won't. I promise." Bruce replied quietly, then sighed, "Let's clean you up. How does that sound?" Bucky nodded. Bruce cleaned his hands, then went to his closet and chose an oversized grey t-shirt. He returned to find that Bucky had fallen asleep, her breaths ragged but steady. Bruce relaxed a bit and fetched a pair of scissors from his desk. He hoped that Bucky didn't have a personal attachment to her camisole, because he carefully cut it off of her and set it aside. Her bra was a mint color and lacy. Bruce, despite everything, laughed to himself. He hadn't expected the Winter Soldier to have girly underwear. Bruce shook his head, then gently washed off the rest of the blood and the eyeblack on her face and dressed Bucky into his grey t-shirt. He removed her boots, changed the sheets beneath her, then went to work on the various holsters and straps over Bucky's cargo pants. He made a small pile of her knee pads and other straps on the floor, and another pile for all of her weapons. There were so many. She had four knives, and then an extra one in her boot, one handgun on each leg, and another automatic type of weapon--Bruce wasn't really an expert on guns, though he was an expert on being shot at--and although Bruce couldn't be sure, Bucky also seemed to have a garrote and what appeared to be a tranquilizer gun and a taser. He decided, other guy or no, that he did not want to meet her in a dark alley. Content that she was as comfortable as possible, Bruce made another cup of tea and brought the dissertation to the bedroom. It already felt like a long night, but it had only just started. Bucky had to be watched lest some complication arise in the night. He was just about to start reading when he remembered the capsule. He made a bowl of warm water and dropped the bullet and the capsule inside. If they were lucky, the bullet would be traceable--but Bucky herself used unmarked Soviet bullets, so the odds were that whoever shot at her would use similar precautions. But the capsule was something else entirely, and when Bruce held it between his fingers he was surprised to find that it looked brand-new, with no trace of any corrosion or marks. If Bruce didn't know better, he would have thought that Bucky had recently planted the capsule in herself. But that was ridiculous, he had found it in her back. But maybe--and this was a stretch--that capsule was why Bucky had been shot in the first place, someone had been trying to destroy it. Maybe the bullet had just pushed the capsule to her back. But that felt like a bit too much speculation. Bruce would ask her in the morning. He set the clean bullet and capsule on the bedside table, sat in his chair, and drank some of his tea. Now he just had to wait for her to wake up.


	2. Awake-But At What Cost?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky makes some unexpected friends.

Bucky didn't want to open her eyes yet. She was tired and sore and she really didn't feel like answering any questions. But despite feeling generally terrible, she couldn't help but feel accomplished. She still had the microchip, which meant that her mission hadn't been in vain. Coulson would be proud. She thought over her cover one last time, then opened her eyes. She sat up and glanced around. Bruce--bless him--had fallen asleep in his chair, glasses still on his nose. She was wearing a giant t-shirt and her cargo pants, and she could see her gear laid out carefully by Bruce's hand. She would have to find a way to thank him properly one day, but now she had to leave without blowing her cover. She trusted him, but nobody could be trusted with what she knew. Not yet. Careful to be quiet so as not to wake Bruce, Bucky slid out of the bed and padded slowly over to her gear. She winced as her wounds smarted, but she had endured greater pain than this, and had the scars to prove it, so she kept moving. Besides, that super soldier bullshit the Germans had pumped into her veins made her heal quicker, so in a way she had them to thank. Be it some act of God, gods, or just Bruce having the sleeping habits of a stone, Bucky was able to stuff her gear--except the vest that useless piece of shit--into a backpack that she found in a cupboard and change into a t-shirt that didn't reach her knees and a hoodie that fit her arm. She made a mental note to return Bruce's stuff later, then silently let herself out of the apartment. She checked one last time that the capsule and bullet were still in their plastic baggie in her pants pocket, she disappeared down the hall. Fastening a baseball cap over her hair, she pulled up the hood and pattered quickly down the stairs to the cool of Albuquerque in late fall. Luckily she didn't bump into anyone, and she made it onto the next bus to Puenta Antigua. She had just put her stuff into the overhead compartment when a young boy stepped onto the bus holding hands with a young girl. They were both about ten years old. Bucky didn't pay much attention to them, and sat quietly in her window seat. Much to her surprise, the children walked to the back of the bus and sat down across the aisle from Bucky. She smiled a little, the kids were sweet, the girl probably a child of immigrants with her long black hair and honey skin, the boy probably local with a mop of brown hair and way too many freckles. They were obviously close friends, and they chattered quietly between themselves. Bucky waited for their parents to get on the bus, but none did, and eventually the bus pulled out of the station taking the children with them. To pass the time Bucky pulled a small sketchbook and pencil from another pocket in her pants. She began to draw, scribbled at first, but eventually pulling the bridge of a nose and the curve of eyes and a chin from the darkness. She had been training in remembering faces, and this one was the sniper who had shot her as she was escaping from the lab in Albuquerque. Maybe Coulson's face recognition software would be able to find a match. It was bitter irony that she, a sniper, had been hit by someone in her own trade. Maybe she would talk to Francis about it. He liked the whole poetic justice idea. 

"Lady?" A young voice piped, and Bucky ignored it. There was a short pause as whoever was speaking found the courage to speak again. "Lady?" Bucky looked up from her drawing and gave her attention to the kids next to her. It was the boy who had spoken, because the girl was cowering shyly behind him. 

"Yes?" Bucky had trouble being annoyed. She had always liked kids, so much that once she had accidentally broken her conditioning because her handler had told her to shoot a little boy who had accidentally wandered into their compound. And oh, they had tried to cut the empathy out of her, but she had clung to it--if at times only subconsciously. 

"Um. Anna was wondering why you're here all by yourself." The boy asked, his voice filled with childish bravado. 

"I could ask you the same question." Bucky replied with a smirk. 

"But I asked first." The boy was insistent. Bucky felt a bit suspicious of these kids, there was just something off about their situation. 

"I'm visiting my boyfriend." Bucky replied, lying happily through her teeth. Her boyfriend was happily--or perhaps anxiously because she hadn't told him where she was going--at home in his apartment in DC. 

"We're running away. Charlie and I are." The girl piped up for the first time, looking both brave and absolutely terrified. Bucky's eyes widened. 

"Are you now?" Bucky remembered the first time she had run away when she was seven years old after a fight with her stepsister. Bucky's parents had found her happily curled up in Steve's bed and she had gone home the next morning. 

"She has a uncle who lives in Puen-Puent-" the boy--Charlie--stuttered. 

"Where we're going." The girl finished. 

"Yeah. There. He said we could come by if Anna's step-brother hit her again. So here we are." Bucky gave a start as she saw that the girl--Anna--had a black eye.

"Oh my god. Are you ok?" Bucky asked, now genuinely worried. Anna nodded. 

"Yeah. But my uncle. He wants to talk to you." Anna held out a cell phone. Bucky's heart began to race. This was a trap. It had to be. This was way too weird. She reached down and surreptitiously pulled a small knife from her boot. "Please. Uncle Coulson wants to talk to you." Bucky narrowed her eyes, but took the phone. 

"Omega this is Alpha Base. Come in Omega." A familiar voice came over the phone. It was Skye. Bucky knew her voice from their time debriefing. 

"This is Omega. Why are you contacting me? I thought the deal was radio silence." Bucky whispered hoarsely. Coulson's knew her too damn well. If anyone but children had approached her, she would have gotten out of the bus before it had left the station. 

"Yeah about that. Our base was attacked. HYDRA somehow figured out where we were. We managed to escape with our data, but you can't come to Puenta Antigua" Skye replied. 

"Let me speak to Coulson." Bucky wasn't going to let her guard down. For a breach that big, there was usually an insider. 

"I'm here. We're on speakerphone with the team." Coulson spoke up, his voice troubled. 

"That's low, sending kids after me. I just want you to know that." Bucky sneered. 

"You went dark for twelve hours, you could have gone rogue for all we knew." Coulson reasoned. 

"And if I had? I could have killed them, or, or worse. Don't you understand that?" Bucky whispered so that the children wouldn't be able to hear. 

"No you couldn't have. I trust you." Coulson replied steadily. 

"I don't trust me. Especially not last night. I had to turn to Banner for help. I put him and everyone in that building in danger." Bucky took a deep breath, "He's my friend and I couldn't even stay to thank him for saving my life. You you know how messed up that is?" There was whispered conversation on the other line. "I did get what I was coming for though."

"We can have this conversation later. Now I need you to get out of there. Meet us where we first lost you. Bring the kids with you." Coulson stated sharply. 

"What about their parents?" Bucky demanded angrily. 

"Charlie wasn't lying. Anna has an uncle where you're going." Skye spoke up quietly, and Bucky almost threw the phone across the bus. "And Bucky, they're like me. Which means they need protection."

"So that's what the mission is about. Not stealing top secret intelligence from HYDRA, but handing two kids with fucking superpowers to you guys." Bucky snapped, keeping her voice low. 

"We need you. You're the best agent we have in the field." Skye pleaded. 

"You know I'm on the do-not-fly list." Bucky replied angrily. She had asked Stark to work on an anti-metal detector, but he was so swamped in SHIELD crap like exploding pens he hadn't managed. Not to mention the fucking do-not-fly list that nobody had done anything about.

"Find a way." Coulson stated, then there was a click as he hung up. Bucky transferred the phone to her left hand and crushed it, gritting her teeth to stop from screaming with anger.

"Don't worry lady." Charlie spoke up. "We'll be good." Bucky turned to him and her anger became resignation. 

"Ok kid. Now let's get off this bus." Bucky sighed and got out of her seat. She retrieved her backpack, checked that the capsule was still in her pocket, and marched to the front of the bus. The children followed her. Bucky went up to the driver and whispered something in his ear. The bus came to a screeching stop.

"And don't you dare get on this bus again!" The driver yelled through the door as he drove away in a cloud of dust. Bucky and the children watched it drive away. 

"It warmed up." Charlie stated simply.

"Do you purposely speak in understatements?" Bucky was already practically drenched in her hoodie. Apparently New Mexico autumns were only cold in the mornings. She stripped it off and put it in her backpack. 

"Arm." Anna gawked as Bucky rolled her shoulder, making the metal glint in the sun. 

"Yeah. I lost it in a climbing accident." Bucky pulled off her glove and stuffed it into her pocket. "Let's bounce."

"Where are we going?" Charlie asked as Bucky began the trek back into town. 

"Where I lost my arm."


	3. Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky kicks misogynist ass. In a tux. Also some tears.

Charlie was on fire. Not 'on fire' as in doing really well in soccer or whatever, but the engulfed in terrifying orange flames kind of 'on fire.' Bucky almost died from shock. Just seconds before she had been meeting one of her contacts--a wealthy businessman who had once contracted Bucky to do some industrial espionage, and who given the right incentive could bribe anyone onto an airplane. Now suddenly Charlie was melting through the plastic bench at the bus stop. Bucky wasn't really sure what to do when it came to spontaneous combustion, but she was about to tackle Charlie and roll him on the floor with the hopes of extinguishing the flames when Anna grabbed Bucky's hand. 

"Don't be frightened; Charlie's fine. That's his special." Anna interjected wisely. Bucky paused and noticed that despite the flames, Charlie seemed neither uncomfortable nor injured in any way. Even his clothes were not being consumed by the flames, though the bench was starting to drip onto the pavement. Bucky sighed heavily and pulled at the collar of her tux.

"You know this shit is why I stopped doing deals with super villains." Bucky's contact--his name was William Sharpweather though he tried to insist that Bucky call him 'Nighthawk'--groaned flirtatiously, as if being an assassin for hire was something much sexier than it actually was. Bucky was glad she had decided to wear pants instead of that pretty red gown from Dior, even if it meant she had to steal a tux she would never wear again.

"Jem's not a super villain." Anna piped, sticking out her hands as if to warm them over Charlie's fire, "Maybe an antihero but not a villain. She's nice." And then, without any warning, blasts of ice and cold air erupted from Anna's hands, effectively putting out Charlie's fire. William put up an attempt at a seductive eyebrow. Bucky almost rolled her eyes. 

"Jem. That's your name?" William asked, totally unfazed by the children's superpowers and knowledge of the term antihero. Bucky's expression hardened. She had already agreed to meet this man in broad daylight and in civilian clothes. Luckily--or unluckily for him most likely--the venue was at least deserted. Though his terms had dictated that she dress formally, which explained the tuxedo. But William only knew Bucky as the Winter Soldier, and it would stay that way. Bucky made a mental note to buy Anna an ice-cream for thinking of such a clever way to throw this already invasive man off her track. "It's a beautiful name." 

"Thanks. Now. About this deal--" Bucky tried to bring the conversation back on track. 

"What's your price?" William stated suddenly, his hands tightening minutely on the seat of the bench. 

"There is no price. You give us safe passage to Switzerland and I don't leak everything I know about you to the press." Bucky felt the hint of a smile hiding beneath her coldness.

"That's not what I meant. I have hired you once. Could I do that again?" William grinned at Bucky hungrily. Anna glanced at Charlie and they both scooted towards Bucky as if to protect her.

"If you want trade secrets stolen from a rival company, I am your girl. But I will never really be 'your' girl if you get what I'm saying." Bucky was dead serious in a way that made William think of the first time he had met her, in his living room one day when he had returned home late from work. He was starting to become absolutely terrified, but not enough to stop hassling Bucky. 

"Come on. It will be fun for you as well as for me. Imagine what you could do with that arm of yours--" William grinned and Bucky flexed her metal fingers inside their glove "You're a spy, don't tell me you haven't done this before." 

Bucky was on fire. Not literally on fire, or 'on fire' as if she were doing well in soccer or whatever. Bucky was on fire with rage. 

"Charlie, Anna, you might not want to watch this." Bucky growled beneath her breath, standing up and rolling her left shoulder in anticipation. "You want to see what I can do with this arm of mine? Well by all means, I'll show you." William was reduced into a whimpering, bleeding mess in a matter of moments, nursing two cracked ribs and a shattered ego. "My terms. You get us safe passage to Switzerland, I don't leak your disgusting love life and questionable business practices to your shareholders, and I never see your slimy ass again." Bucky paused and turned to Charlie and Anna, who despite Bucky's warning were looking on in awe. William nodded pathetically. "Good. Now let's go." Bucky nodded to her wards and they followed her back down the street. It was only when Bucky had returned to the motel where they were staying, changed clothes and burned her tuxedo when she was able to cool down slightly. Charlie and Anna sat together on the couch, whispering to each other. Eventually Anna cleared her throat. 

"Um, Bucky?" Anna asked nervously as Bucky paced back and forth, articulating her arm panel by panel like she did when she was nervous. "Charlie and I were wondering if you would teach us how to do that. You know. Fight people." Bucky stopped dead in her tracks, and sat down on the bed with her head in her hands. Charlie stood up and tentatively walked over to Bucky who was doing everything in her power to keep it together. He stood next to her, shifting from one foot to the other, unsure of how to proceed. Then, in an act of faith, he settled down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Bucky let out a sob and he pulled his hand away and got up again.

"You don't want to learn. Once they found out I had trained you, SHIELD would recruit you, and you would be doomed to follow in my footsteps. You don't want this kind of life. You want to grow up, get married, have children of your own, and grow old. You may not want that now, but you will. Stay as you are while you still have that chance." Bucky took in a ragged breath, wiped her eyes and sat up straight. These were children. She couldn't let them see her cry, it would destroy their morale. She took another deep breath and looked up at her wards. Charlie and Anna stood in front of her, but they were different. Mostly because Charlie was on fire again, and Anna seemed to be a living ice sculpture. They were holding hands as they had been when Bucky had first seen them, each apparently immune to the other's power. But also because instead of seeming tentative and afraid, they for once seemed resolute.

"It's a bit too late for that." Anna replied softly, her voice sounding as if it were echoing through a cave. "Please will you teach us?"


	4. Fight Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lol this one is really short. Keep reading.

"First rule--" Bucky began, sitting comfortably on the counter for the bar. William, despite his many, many faults, had come through with the deal, and the unlikely trio were now flying across the Atlantic in a private jet. The flight, however, could only go as far as Paris, so their trip was--in Bucky's eyes--unnecessarily prolonged, but at least it gave her time to train her wards. 

"We don't talk about Fight Club?" Charlie asked with a giggle. 

"I don't understand that reference." Bucky gave Charlie a questioning look. "But the first rule is: don't go looking for a fight. Now if you train with my friend Steve you might get a different story, but, believe me, the best battles are the ones avoided." Bucky's hand involuntarily ghosted to where she had been hit by the sniper just a few days before. It had healed remarkably quickly, due to Bruce's quick handiwork and her own nature. If she had only been more careful. "And the second rule is, unless you know Judo and some other martial arts, never fight anyone bigger than you. They'll either just pin you to the ground, or hit you hard across the head and then you're down. So I'm going to teach you Judo."


	5. Let's Play A Game-It's Called Run For Your Lives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More! More! More! More!

"Ok guys we're going to play a fun game." Bucky pulled on her mask and goggles, holding the mask away from her mouth just long enough to speak to Charlie and Anna. She strapped her guns to her thighs and to the strap on her back. The children stared at her in awe. Over the past few days, despite the fact that Bucky had carted them from city to city, calling favors from hardened criminals, and perfecting their combat technique, Charlie and Anna had never seen her in gear and they looked frightened. "It's called 'let's not get captured'. It'll be really super. You ready?" The two kids were obviously exhausted, they had been walking since Zurich after running from the HYDRA agents who had tried to pick them up at the train station. Now they were picking their way across a forest somewhere in the Alps, and Bucky had just heard dogs. Bucky tightened her mask and made sure her knives were within reach.

"I'm cold and my feet hurt." Anna pouted and Charlie nodded. The young girl struggled as Bucky pulled off her red jacket and replaced it with Bruce's hoodie that was a less blatant shade of grey. Bucky put the baseball cap on Charlie's head and turned it backwards, then stuffed Anna's jacket into the now empty backpack and threw that into a bush. 

"Yeah. Me too." Bucky's voice was muffled beneath her mask, "But guess what, when we make it to my friends, I promise you can have a nice hot bath. How does that sound?" The children nodded begrudgingly. "Great. Now follow me, and keep your heads down." Bucky led Charlie and Anna towards the river. They hesitated a moment at the edge, but eventually followed, splashing in the water. They were a few miles upstream when Bucky heard the dogs howl angrily, having found the backpack. She smiled beneath her mask, not that anyone could tell. The unlikely trio trudged through the water for another mile and a half, until the trees thinned and Bucky could see the ridge. Now they crossed the river to the other bank and stood shivering. This was the spot Coulson had described. Bucky closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again rapidly when she saw a wintry sky flash past her eyes. Why Coulson had chosen this place, the place where she had lost Steve and quite practically everything else was beyond her. Cliffs in general were a trigger, and honestly so were trains. It had been quite the trip from Paris to Zurich by train, with Bucky fairly destroying the armrests of her seat while Charlie, Anna, and a few other passengers looked on curiously, but Bucky knew she had to overcome her fear. She took a deep breath and thought back to when she and Francis had made a pact to go back to the source of their--their shell-shock and fight it. Though this excursion had been unplanned, she had to hold up her end of the bargain. Bucky paused to steel her nerves. "Stay back." She said to Charlie and Anna when they reached a hauntingly familiar clearing, the place where she had been dragged ashore by HYDRA forces after a fall that should have killed her. "Wait for my signal." Then Bucky--going against everything her sniper training stood for--went to the middle of the clearing, and fighting back unexpected tears of nostalgia, made a birdcall. She held back a sob when she imagined the other Howling Commandoes hiding in the trees, awaiting this very signal. Coulson would recognize it, he was the biggest Captain America fan Bucky had seen since the forties, but Bucky was met instead with momentary silence. She made the call again, but still there was nothing. Bucky was just about to give up and head back when a silver ski-suited figure stepped from the other side of the clearing. Even with the polarized lenses of her goggles it was difficult to tell who it was. Then he put up his hands, made the same birdcall, and suddenly the clearing was teeming with similarly outfitted individuals. Bucky walked over to the man and glared at him through her goggles. Coulson pulled down his hood and took off his sunglasses. Bucky handed him the plastic bag with the capsule, bullet, and sketch of the sniper. 

"You've done well. I'm proud." Coulson put the bag into his pocket. "This intel will really help us with the fight against HYDRA." Bucky said nothing, just stared at him. "Did you bring my niece and her friend? She actually is my niece by the way. Anna Suarez. My sister's daughter. And the boy, Charlie, well, only Anna knows anything about him." Bucky still said nothing. "Did you train them? We thought you might." Bucky felt a tear creep from her goggles into her mask, but she remained silent. "Good. We need all talented youngsters, to borrow a phrase, on our side." He gave her a grim smile, but she shook her head, gave him a one-fingered salute with her metal hand and stalked off. "Bucky! Come back! I swear to you they will come to no harm." Coulson called after her, but she didn't even turn around. She waved to Charlie and Anna and they ran into the clearing, where they were wrapped in blankets by SHIELD agents. Two other agents appeared in front of Bucky. 

"Ma'am, you're going to have to come with us." One of the goons stated. Bucky tilted her head in questioning contempt, gave a short barking laugh, then pushed past them. She was going home.


	6. Home, For Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ehehhehe. They probably have sex.

Steve sat at his kitchen table, aimlessly nursing a cup of coffee. Bucky had been gone for almost a week now. Granted, he was used to it, she needed time to detox from this futuristic world they had suddenly been tossed into, and so had he, but it didn't stop him from missing her. He jumped when he heard a rattling at the door like someone trying to get in with a lock pick. There had been burglaries in some of the other apartments, so everyone had been on alert. He ran to the door and after a moment's hesitation, pulled it open. Bucky stood at the door, looking tired but strangely fulfilled. Steve stared at her, unsure of what to say. Bucky gave him a weak half-smile.

"I needed a partner." She paused for a moment. "And I missed you." She ran a hand through her hair, nervously glancing towards the stairs. There was a smudge of eyeblack still on her cheek.

"All you have to do is ask." Steve replied quietly, shifting from side to side. Bucky's eyes welled with tears and she held out her arms. Steve picked her up in a hug and, sweeping her off her feet, carried her to the couch with a laugh. "But now I'm making popcorn and we're watching Breakfast at Tiffany's and you are not allowed to protest." Steve set Bucky down on the couch, but she didn't let go of him. With a funny little smile, she pulled him on top of her. Steve never made it to the kitchen to make popcorn, and they didn't watch Breakfast at Tiffany's. That night Steve found Bucky's new scars and kissed her and cried. That night Bucky told Steve about some of the places to where she had been disappearing. That night Bucky made one of the few promises that she would always keep


	7. Wake Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another short one. Just you wait!

"Steve." Bucky nudged her boyfriend's sleeping figure. "Steve wake up."

"What time is it?" Steve mumbled grumpily into his pillow. 

"2:34 in the morning." Bucky whispered.

"Go back to sleep." Steve grumbled, rolling over to look at his girlfriend. He made a sound of shock as he saw Bucky in her full gear, and the new bulletproof vest Fury had sent to her. 

"I got a call. My handler needs me in Belarus." Bucky drummed her fingers nervously on one of her handguns. 

"Ok." Steve paused, waiting to see if Bucky would do good on the promise she had made about a month before.

"Will you come with me?" Steve almost laughed at the juxtaposition. Here was Bucky--the Winter goddamn Soldier--innocently asking him to join her on some specials ops mission. Steve reached up, unclipped Bucky's mask, and kissed her fully on the mouth. He felt her smile beneath his lips before pushing him playfully away and replacing her mask. 

"Give me ten minutes to get ready." Steve rolled out of bed, running a hand though his hair. "And don't leave without me."


	8. Fuck You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Badassery and Coulson!

"Fuck you." Bucky whispered, pulling the trigger. A dark-haired man fell from his nest, leaving his rifle unattended. He hit the glass dome twenty yards in front of Steve, shattering the glass and falling further, which made the First Avenger jump in surprise. Steve glanced quickly back to Bucky and gave her a small salute, thanking her for taking down the sniper who had been prepared to kill him. Bucky had recognized the poor devil as the sniper who had shot her, the one she had sketched in the bus. But she had to work quickly before someone else took his place. She partially disassembled her own rifle, and strapping it across her back, slid down across the rooftop. Belarus was nice, Bucky supposed, with Minsk relatively indistinguishable from the myriad capitals of post-communist European nations in which she had conducted operations. Except Prague, that was stunning, and filled with squares and tall buildings--a sniper's dream. Granted, Budapest had been memorable, but for different reasons. By the times these thoughts had tumbled through Bucky's mind, she had reached the other sniper's nest without being spotted. She was just about to take a proper look at the weapon when she saw someone sneaking up on Steve. She hit the dirt, cocked the weapon, aimed and fired. It was risky, taking a shot with a gun she had never fired, but there wasn't time to practice. Her target dropped and Bucky let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Seeing no further immediate threat, Bucky took a moment to disarm and examine the rifle. It was her gun. Well, not really, she was still wearing her gun from before, but the horizontal scratches on the barrel from that time in Budapest was unmistakable. That's why her shot had been true, she had trained for years with this gun. And if it was her gun, then, if it hadn't been checked thoroughly, then maybe--Bucky began to disassemble the rifle. She set each piece aside as she took it apart, until all that was left was the rifle butt. With a quiet prayer, Bucky found the small circular button in the back of the shoulder rest. She then took the cleaning brush that the other sniper had left next to the gun, and pressed the tip against the button. There was a distinct click and the rifle butt opened. Inside were papers crumbling with age, and a thin metal tube. This was what Bucky had managed to stash during the times when her conditioning had faded and she had made plans to run for the hills. She had managed once to go AWOL for two hours, which hadn't gotten her far, but she had been able to get her hands on some serious intelligence. She rolled her left shoulder and hit the red star to open the arm. It was then when she was tackled to the ground. Having let her guard down for those few minutes, Bucky had allowed herself to be snuck up on. But luckily she had been trained exactly for this sort of attack. The documents and tube clattered out of her hand and her arm closed again as she flipped over her attacker and landed on her feet. It was a woman, and she was by no means slight. She was easily six foot five and one hundred and sixty pounds of pure muscle, her pale blonde hair cut into a short pixie cut. Bucky wasn't small, but compared to this Amazon she did feel slightly dwarfed. Bucky's mind flashed back to the time she had to pull a Goliath of a man off of Steve outside a movie theater, and ducked just in time to miss a passionate but easy to avoid punch from her attacker. She ducked around a few similar punches and did a somersault over a very high kick. But then the Amazon--Bucky decided to call her that--made her first serious mistake. She stepped forward with her right foot in preparation of another blow. With reflexes seconds faster than the average human, Bucky quickly swept her left leg outside the Amazon's right and pulled the woman over her hip with her metallic arm. Bucky followed suit, sitting on the Amazon's back and holding her in a chokehold with her left arm over the woman's throat. 

"Bitch." The Amazon spat, gasping hoarsely against Bucky's arm. "Marco was my friend." She made a wheezing sound, "Can't breathe."

"I'm going to let you go. Try to escape, and you meet your sniper friend in hell." Bucky hissed in her adversary's ear. The Amazon nodded weakly and Bucky zip-tied the woman's hands together behind her back. Bucky then took all of the Amazon's weapons and crushed her comm between a metal finger and thumb. Bucky then drew one of her handguns and retrieved the lost papers and cylinder. She carefully rolled them up, and placed them into her arm. Bucky heard a shuffling sound and whipped around, aiming the gun to the woman's head. 

"It's ok. It's me." Steve raised his hands, speaking softly. Bucky lowered her weapon and returned it to its holster. 

"Shit. You gotta be careful out there. If I hadn't been working the roofs who knows what could have happened." Bucky replied, her voice a hoarse whisper. Steve gave her a small smile reminiscent of the old days. 

"Thanks by the way; I owe you a drink." Steve replied soberly, but he winked as he changed the topic, "But I got what we were here for. Also they were holding a few people captive--for experiments or something. I let them go. SHIELD will pick them up just outside the city." Steve watched as Bucky expertly packed up the two sniper rifles and camouflaged the scene. What impressed Steve more was that Bucky's captive hadn't made any attempt to escape nor break her cyanide pill. In fact, the Amazon of a woman seemed almost afraid as Bucky sauntered over.

"So I say we ask our friend a few questions." Bucky lifted the woman's chin and glared through her goggles into the woman's hazel eyes. Suddenly, Bucky felt a flash of recognition burst in her brain. This was Astrid Sorensen, a mercenary, but no HYDRA loyalist. "Astrid? The hell are you doing here? The last I heard you had been picked up by MOSSAD." Bucky leaned over to cut Astrid out of her bonds, but the Amazon wriggled away. 

"I want nothing to do with you, Rebecca." Astrid hissed, "Marco was a good man. A double within HYDRA and one of the best agents I've ever seen. I was going to marry him." Astrid was beyond distraught.

"He tried to kill Steve, and it would have been me next. It was kill or be killed." Bucky reasoned, justifying it just as much to Astrid as to herself. "He already shot me once. I was lucky to survive then. He wasn't going to let me get away a second time."

"He only used blanks!" Astrid sobbed. "He promised me, no more killing. We were going to get out. Both of us." Bucky's heart broke and she glanced at Steve, who simply seemed baffled by Bucky knowing this woman. 

"No. He didn't. Astrid, you were played." Bucky gave a deep sigh, "He was probably a triple. Did you tell him anything? Astrid. You have to think. There isn't much time, if we're not already too late." Astrid swallowed down sobs and sat up, resolute with a new anger.

"I took him to a safe house in Tel Aviv. There were a few classified documents locked in the safe." Astrid swore bitterly. "He knows MOSSAD's game plan in Johannesburg." Steve looked over the edge of the roof, and found the way clear. 

"Let's get off this roof and talk on the Bus." Steve gestured to where he had come from. Astrid let Bucky cut her out of the zip ties and the two women followed. The Bus--as Coulson's crew liked to call it--was an Airbus A380 with jump jet and cloaking capabilities that was currently parked just outside Minsk. Skye met them at the loading bay. 

"Steve! Good to see you. I bet you're glad she's back in action." Skye nodded to Bucky and gave Steve a knowing smile, which made him blush. Bucky--though her face was covered by a mask and goggles--made a confused expression. 

"You have no idea." Steve smiled gently, his blush burning away. 

"Cute. Well, boss's waiting inside for debrief. Do I put her in the interrogation room?" Skye glanced at Astrid. Bucky took a few moments to think and unbuckle her mask and push her goggles to the top of her head. 

"Yeah. But make it comfortable." Bucky nodded and Astrid followed Skye out of the bay. Steve followed Bucky up to the main deck. 

"Um. So who's boss again?" Steve asked as they passed by the lab. Simmons stared after Steve with a look of wonder on her face until Fitz shocked her with a tiny circuit board that they were working on. 

"Yeah. About that." Bucky fastened her mask to her vest as they stopped outside of the office doors. "Remember how you and the rest of the Avengers got your act together?"

"Of course. Loki killed Agent Coulson. He was a nice guy, kinda obsessed with--well--me, but nice." Steve seemed genuinely upset about Coulson's death. Bucky wasn't sure how to respond, so she just knocked on the door and let herself in, Steve close behind. 

"Ah. B--" Coulson stuttered to silenced when Steve walked into his office. 

"Oh hell no." Steve threw up his hands. Coulson surreptitiously took a framed film still of Steve in his old uniform and put it into a drawer.

"Hi. Yes. I probably have a lot to explain." Coulson found his voice just as Steve stormed out. Bucky ran after him and stopped him just down the hall. 

"Steve. Please. You have to forgive me. I was under direct orders." Bucky held Steve's head in her hands, feeling the edge of his jaw with her fingertips. 

"I'm not angry with you Buck. It's SHIELD I'm pissed off about. We tear it down, burn it to the ground. Hell you even helped in a way, but then they just bring it back. To fight HYDRA I know. But why keep the Avengers in the dark? We could help instead of waiting for Fury to point stuff out sometimes. And they sweep you into the shadows again, leaving me totally alone. It's hard." Steve snapped. 

"We can tell them when we get back. Go to New York and everything. Not even Natasha knows, and she's good." Bucky reasoned. Steve gave a resigned sigh. "And Steve I know. It's hard for me too. But this is something I'm good at. I can't go back to real civilian life. You know what happens when I go to the supermarket with my arm and my scars. So until I can find an alternative, this is going to be my life. And with you here it isn't so bad."

"I'm with you 'till the end of the line." Steve's anger boiled away, "So this is my life too." Bucky stood up partway on her toes and kissed Steve gently, smudging some of her eyeblack on his face. She pressed Steve against the wall as their kiss deepened, until someone cleared their throat.

"I've read some fanfiction like this." Coulson piped, grinning quietly to himself when both Steve and Bucky gave him the 'I don't understand that reference' face. "But we really should get going. Time is of the essence after all." The two super soldiers blushed like schoolchildren, but followed Coulson into the office.


	9. Betrayal?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor Steve. Poor Bucky. Poor Everyone.

"Bucky!" Two young voices chimed excitedly as she and Steve followed Skye to the interrogation room. Two ten-year-olds hugged Bucky from both sides while Steve looked on with a mixture of confusion and repressed laughter. 

"Anna! Charlie! How are you guys?" Bucky was still angry that SHIELD had to take them under its wing, but she was happy that they were at least safe. 

"Good! Look. I practiced what you taught us." Charlie piped, then, without warning, brought Steve to the deck with a flip. Steve rolled to his feet, no longer so amused. 

"Is this your boyfriend? He seems nice." Anna looked up at Steve with a wide grin before she crystallized into ice and slid away down the hall. 

"Children. With superpowers." Steve noted as Charlie proceeded to set his own fingers alight like ten birthday candles. "That you trained in Judo and told you had a boyfriend." 

"All of the above." Bucky nodded as they turned down the corridor towards the interrogation room. 

"They're wild." Skye added with a knowing sigh, "Kind of sweet though. They remind me of you guys. Not that I just said that why did I say that?" Skye chuckled. 

"How so?" Steve asked, adjusting the shield on his back. 

"They're inseparable. Like in the comics you're always saving each other." Skye noted as they reached the door to the interrogation room. "Not that I read the comics regularly, it's just that Coulson's office is filled with old Captain America stuff and I--" Skye stopped short as she opened the door to the interrogation room. Astrid was gone. Bucky quickly looked up, tensed in preparation of an attack, but there was none. Astrid was simply gone without a trace. Steve whipped around to Bucky, an expression of betrayal in his eyes that almost brought Bucky to her knees. Skye kicked into action, drawing her gun and pointing it at Bucky's head.

"That better be you in there or I swear to god--" Steve snapped, looking into Bucky's eyes as if he could find truth there. 

"I know I can't convince you with words." Bucky replied, moving her right hand slowly towards her left shoulder. "But let me convince you with my actions." Quickly, she slammed the red star button on her shoulder and her arm whirred as it opened. Skye's eyes widened in wonder as Bucky removed the papers and capsule from the interior compartment. "This--" Bucky held up the papers, "Is all the intelligence I have been able to amass, and it is all the intelligence that was torn from my memory. Some of it might be outdated. But most of it wont be." Bucky sighed with relief as the pain in Steve's eyes evaporated. Skye lowered her weapon, though she didn't holster it. Not yet. Bucky walked over to the table in the center of the room and spread out the papers. There were a few hand-drawn maps, stolen blueprints, and a few pages of scribbled writing in Bucky's hand. Carefully, Bucky unscrewed the metal tube and poured its contents onto the table. Maybe fifteen clear, shinning stones winked up at the trio. 

"Diamonds?" Skye brushed through the cool stones with an inquisitive finger. 

"Most likely conflict, from the mines of South Africa." Bucky noted, picking up the largest of the diamonds and looking at it carefully. 

"Why South Africa? There's mines all over." Steve added, taking a deep breath. He had to start trusting Bucky. Fully, in the way he had when they were children. He had thought he was already at that point, but he had been proven wrong. Steve didn't trust Bucky because he was worried that it wasn't really all her inside that brain. There was something that HYDRA had broken in her besides the obvious. Sometimes Steve swore that Bucky--the girl from Brooklyn that he knew before the war--was gone. Entirely. Like some kind of sick magic trick. But then she would come back in short bursts, when they were dancing, or when she held her left hand over the toaster for a while so when she touched him it didn't feel like ice down his back, or when he came home to find that she had made a fort out of pillows and blankets and had fallen asleep listening to old records. 'War changes everyone.' Steve decided firmly as he watched Bucky roll her left shoulder anxiously.

"Astrid slipped up. She mentioned Johannesburg, and these diamonds were only cut recently. There's a time stamp on the tube for six months ago. I was still working for HYDRA at that point. Hiding these must have been one of my last fights against the conditioning before you broke it entirely." Bucky gave Steve a familiar, small smile and after a brief moment he returned it. 

"So you think whatever was going down in Johannesburg is still underway?" Skye asked, finally sheathing her weapon. Bucky nodded adamantly. 

"I am--I was their greatest asset. They were efficient because they had me under control and I had their issues under a control of my own." Bucky didn't feel smug, just pained, "None of their snipers are as trained as I am. Their targets have an escape rate of above ten percent, which means that HYDRA's proceedings are set back by months of not years." 

"Is that where you think we'll find Astrid? South Africa?" Steve gestured to the empty room as Bucky replaced the documents in her arm.

"No. I think we are going to find her on this plane. Which means we're also going to need to find the mole." Bucky replied, her voice dangerously calm. 

"How on earth are we going to do that?" Steve wondered aloud as Bucky stepped out into the corridor. 

"No clue." She gave him a cheeky grin and replaced her mask over her face, and pulled down her goggles. "But we should start by killing the lights."


	10. Jump Twice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CLIFF HANGER. YO WHATUP. 
> 
> I sincerely apologize for my truly crappy summaries.

Astrid fumbled on her parachute harness. She hated heights, but if she was going to escape without that bitch and her boyfriend finding her, she was going to have to jump. 

"You'll be fine. Just take a deep breath and jump." She reassured herself. "One." Astrid took one step closer to the edge of the open cargo hold. "Two." She did one last check of her harness. "Three." Astrid jumped into space and began her free fall. She felt completely weightless for maybe a fraction of a second before she felt a sharp tug on her harness. 

"You're not going anywhere." Bucky, holding onto a cargo net for support, tossed Astrid over her shoulder and back into the plane. The hatch began to close as Astrid rolled to a crouch. She gave Bucky smile of pure hatred that could only hide the glimmer of fear in her eyes as she tried to dislodge her false tooth and the cyanide capsule beneath. 

"Not even to hell." Steve dropped silently from the rafters and grabbed Astrid's cheeks, forcing her mouth open. The pill clattered out from between her lips and Bucky kicked it out of the airplane. Sources say it broke upon impact and a curious deer died under mysterious circumstances. Steve manhandled Astrid to her feet and Bucky tossed him a pair of handcuffs from one of the pockets of her pants. "In fact, the only place you're going is our holding cell--for a very long time."

...

"Tell me what you know about South Africa." Steve asked roughly perhaps the fiftieth time that day, his tone dancing across the line between diplomatic and insulting. Bucky sat on the table next to him, looking on with feigned nonchalance. 

"Why would I do that?" Astrid spat, though she was secretly relieved that she had lost her suicide pill. 

"Because if you don't tell us then I put a knife through your hand." Bucky's voice was gentle, but somehow more frightening than Steve's harsh demands. 

"You and I have both undergone torture training. You can't--" Astrid gasped as Bucky stabbed a hunting knife through the Amazon's right hand. 

"Bucky! What the hell?" Steve glanced at his partner, an expression of dismay across his face, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" 

"No. But we need her to talk." With each word, Bucky twisted the knife slightly, and Astrid grimaced in pain and anger. "Your way was too slow. We've been here for six hours, and not a single peep."

"Please. More. You missed my fifth metacarpal." Astrid barked out a weak laugh. In a flash, Bucky pulled out another knife and embedded it in Astrid's left shoulder. Tears sprung to the Amazon's eyes and she swore bitterly. Steve's jaw dropped in shock. 

"What is HYDRA doing in Johannesburg?" Bucky cocked her head as Astrid tried to move her left arm. "You see how that feels? Not having an arm?" Bucky tugged her knife from the cartilage of Astrid's shoulder and tossed it angrily onto the tabletop. "That's what your goddamned organization did to me."

"Bucky stop this!" Steve put his hand on Bucky's forearm. He had seen her in her rages--she had once almost killed a CIA tail--but this was frightening. "There has to be a better way to get her to talk. Stark said something about truth serum--"

"I'm not going to talk." Astrid's voice hitched with pain as Bucky pulled out the knife from Astrid's hand and wiped it. "And after this, neither will you." Astrid took a deep breath and met Bucky's eyes with a secretive smirk. "Sputnik."

"You FUCKING BITCH." Bucky screamed, dropping the knife, and if Steve hadn't grabbed her, the Winter Soldier would have tackled Astrid to the floor. Steve dragged his kicking and screaming girlfriend out of the room to a stunned audience. Well, stunned except for Agent May, she was as collected as usual, but Fitzsimmons, Skye, Bobbi, and Mack all backed away from the Winter Soldier as she thrashed. "LET ME GO. STEVE. YOU HEARD WHAT SHE TRIED TO DO--you-you heard it." Bucky squeezed her eyes tightly shut as if warding off a migraine or fighting her conditioning. "Steve you heard what she said. You remember last time." Steve led her down the hall away from the fearful stares of their team. 

"Yes. I heard her. I remember. I'm sorry that bitch was ever born. But what the hell were you doing in there? You can't torture people. That's not how we do things. You know that." Steve held Bucky by her forearms and stared carefully into her blue-green eyes. 

"That's how I do things. How I've been doing them for a very long time now. Do you seriously think that during my seventy-year run I was just locked up on ice until I had a sniper mission? That's pretty goddamned naive of you." Bucky shivered as she dug into memories that she wished she had forgotten. 

"You're better than this! I thought you were moving on, that you were trying--" Steve began his sentence angrily but stuttered to a halt. 

"What? That I was trying to be good? A hero like you?" Bucky shrugged off Steve's hands. "News flash, Captain America, I'm no hero." Steve recoiled in shock of Bucky's anger, fighting back the tears that were welling in his own eyes. "I'm the Winter FUCKING Soldier. Even those dumb kids knew that I was no good. They only like me because they're freaks of nature, and in me they found kinship!" Bucky slammed her metal palm against Steve's chest and he slid backwards. "I'm not that sweet girl from Brooklyn anymore, Steve. I haven't been since I was first captured." 

"Of course not. But you're still my best friend. My best girl." Steve tried to step closer, but Bucky snarled and was about to say something nasty when Fitz almost ran straight into her, his face pale from shock. 

"The prisoner. She's dead. Somehow found a knife and stabbed herself while we weren't paying attention." He gasped, looking as though he were about to vomit, "We can't make heads or tails of it." Bucky's right hand flashed to her thigh to check for her knives. One, the same she had impaled Astrid's shoulder with, was missing. Bucky swore viciously, and with tears streaming down her cheeks, pushed Steve and Fitz aside and made her way to the back of the plane.

"Bucky! Wait!" Steve called after her, but Fitz held his arm. 

"Captain. Perhaps it is best to let her go." Fitz spoke softly, but even that didn't soften the blow. 

"In what universe?" Steve had to be careful when he shrugged Fitz off so as not to hurt the engineer. In response, Simmons stepped around the corner. 

"In the universe where she did it." Simmons held up a bloody knife in gloved hands.


	11. Thoughts While Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes solo.

Bucky hated heights, but she hated falling more. This made parachute jumps particularly unpleasant. As her hair whipped her face, she briefly considered letting herself tumble to her death. All it would take was not pulling the release strap and she would only be a long, terrifying tumble away from a certainly painful end. "The hell are you doing?" Bucky snapped to herself, pulling the strap and listening to the parachute snap open from the drag. In a few minutes she was back on solid ground, but her stomach still turned as if she were in free fall. Astrid was dead, and due to Bucky's negligence with the knife, all clues pointed to assisted suicide or assassination. Bucky would be imprisoned without trial for assisting the enemy. But worse than that, Steve had stopped trusting her. Bucky wasn't sure she could live knowing that Steve was afraid of her. She felt a tear well and spill inside of her goggles, but she knew she didn't have time to indulge in a good cry, so Bucky camouflaged her parachute and slunk away. The only way she could regain Steve's trust--his unconditional love--would be to solve this damn mystery herself. Bucky only prayed that she hadn't driven the only constant out of her life, and that their relationship could somehow be salvaged. It was hard to say. Steve was a man with a strong moral compass. He would lie down on a grenade to protect his team. Bucky's compass had been fucked with. It pointed east instead of North, not backwards, just wrong. That fiasco with torturing Astrid had proven just how fucked up her compass was, and perhaps Steve's morals would get in the way of any possible reparations. Bucky realized that her mind was spinning in circles, and that she had come to a similar conclusion with each new path. Thus, in an attempt to discard her nagging conscience, Bucky pulled out a disposable phone from her cargo pocket and dialed a number she wished she hadn't memorized. "William." Bucky sighed as the sleazy sonofabitch answered the phone."It's me. I need a plane ticket to Johannesburg in the next fifteen minutes. Leave them at the Minsk airport." Bucky clenched her jaw to stop from screaming. "Yes you can bring them yourself. Just hurry."


	12. Nothing Left Unsaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poor kid.

"Where's Rebecca?" Charlie tugged on Simmons' coat sleeve as she was trying to finish a titration. Potassium permanganate spilled, flooding the tabletop with purple. Simmons swore, lightly pushing Charlie away and fetching some paper towels. 

"I don't know, Charlie. But she's definitely not here in the lab with the dangerous chemicals." Simmons tried to be gentle but her voice seemed to carry a more scolding tone. Charlie got the message and stormed out of the lab. Fitz glanced over some bubbling test tubes. 

"Weren't you a bit tough on him?" He bit his lip, watching how Simmons' expression faded.

"I know. I know. It's just nobody can bear to tell them what Barnes really is. They look up to her; it would crush their little hearts." Simmons couldn't help but feel a little crushed herself as she cleaned up the last of the titrate. 

"We don't know for sure, Jemma." Fitz added a gram of sodium perchlorate to one of the test tubes and watched it dissolve. 

"Barnes must have given Astrid the knife when they were fighting. It was her knife and it has Astrid's blood on it. An analogue smoking gun if you will. Barnes did it. End of story." Simmons brushed her bangs from in front of her eyes and began her titration again. Underneath a table on the other side of the room, Anna cried silently with boiling rage. Bucky wasn't a villain. She would prove it.


	13. Skye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's wrong with Skye?

"Steve. Open the door. We need to talk." Skye rapped in the door to Steve's bunk for the third time. Ever since Bucky had disappeared, Steve had locked himself in his room, strategizing and punching the walls, often simultaneously. 

"Go away." Steve replied angrily, and there was a dull thud as his fist presumably met the doorframe. 

"I'm not leaving until we talk through this." Skye took a deep breath, hoping that if she calmed down, so would he. Her method seemed to work, because after a few moments, the door slid open and Steve strode out. Skye had assumed that he would look terrible, disheveled and exhausted, but the two-day-old stubble seemed to suit him, and he was freshly showered and dressed in civilian clothes, his shield slung across his back. 

"I just had an idea. It's a long shot but it might work." Steve brushed past Skye in the direction of the control room. 

"Don't you want to talk about what happened with Bucky?" Skye ran after Steve with a worried expression on her face.

"What is there to talk about?" Steve's voice hitched slightly, but he didn't turn around. 

"She betrayed your trust. She betrayed all of us. That's a massive blow." Skye snapped angrily. She was sick and tired of Steve's melodrama and excuses--though for the life of her she couldn't understand why. 

"Yeah." Steve took a deep breath, "I've fought worse than traitors before. If we're lucky, she's still under HYDRA's mind control. That means she can be saved." 

"I don't think so, Steve. She's been either with you or under our surveillance ever since she got back. She's been nothing but genuine. No sneaking or secret messages, just her. I don't know how much they indoctrinated her all those years ago." Skye couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. She didn't believe a word of it and she didn't want Steve to believe it either. But she couldn't stop. 

"What are you trying to say?" Steve growled, punching commands into the meeting room's control board. 

"Maybe she didn't fall off that train. Maybe she jumped." Skye screamed inside of her head. Something was wrong. Why was she saying this? Her compliance could be fucking rewarded another time this was Steve! He would go on a one-man mission to hunt Bucky down if he thought she were HYDRA. Shut up about that goddamned compliance Bucky didn't deserve to die!

"Maybe. But it doesn't matter. I don't care anymore." Steve typed a few more commands and waited for the computer to load. A giant radar circle appeared on the screen with two little blips shining. 

"What is that?" Skye demanded, rubbing her eyes. Her new contacts had been bothering her. Perhaps she needed a new prescription. 

"It tracks adamantium and vibranium alloys. The first blip is my shield. The second is Bucky fucking Barnes. And we're going to find her and bring her in. If it's brainwashing I'll bring in Natasha to do some cognitive recalibration. If Bucky's a turncoat, I'll bring in Thor." Steve ran a hand through his hair and sighed angrily. "You're going to be my eyes above. She's just landing in Johannesburg now. We can intercept her there in two hours if we hurry. Tell Agent May." 

"Tell Agent May what?" Coulson stepped into the room nursing a cup of coffee. Bucky's disappearance had hit him hard. Coulson had been tempted to shred all the Captain America comics that featured the 'plucky broad' but they were way too valuable. 

"I found Bucky. And she has some explaining to do."


End file.
